U.S. patent number 4,991,028 [Application Number 07/362,015] was granted by the patent office on 1991-02-05 for communication terminal device.
This patent grant is currently assigned to Canon Kabushiki Kaisha. Invention is credited to Nobuaki Kokubu.
United States Patent |
4,991,028 |
Kokubu |
February 5, 1991 |
**Please see images for:
( Certificate of Correction ) ** |
Communication terminal device
Abstract
A communication terminal device comprises a memory capable
storing a plurality of pages of received information, and a printer
for printing the information stored in the memory. A read sequence
from the memory to the printer is determined in accordance with a
send command.
Inventors: |
Kokubu; Nobuaki (Tokyo,
JP) |
Assignee: |
Canon Kabushiki Kaisha (Tokyo,
JP)
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Family
ID: |
14373856 |
Appl.
No.: |
07/362,015 |
Filed: |
June 6, 1989 |
Related U.S. Patent Documents
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Application
Number |
Filing Date |
Patent Number |
Issue Date |
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46158 |
May 5, 1987 |
4860110 |
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Foreign Application Priority Data
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May 6, 1986 [JP] |
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61-104182 |
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Current U.S.
Class: |
358/403;
358/438 |
Current CPC
Class: |
H04N
1/32363 (20130101); H04N 1/32379 (20130101) |
Current International
Class: |
H04N
1/32 (20060101); H04N 001/32 () |
Field of
Search: |
;358/403,438,400,434,443
;364/518,519 ;379/100 |
References Cited
[Referenced By]
U.S. Patent Documents
Primary Examiner: Britton; Howard W.
Attorney, Agent or Firm: Fitzpatrick, Cella, Harper &
Scinto
Parent Case Text
This application is a division of application Ser. No. 046,158
filed May 5, 1987 now U.S. Pat. No. 4,860,110.
Claims
I claim:
1. A sending apparatus comprising:
(a) first sending means for sending information divided into a
plurality of blocks; and
(b) second sending means for sending data for designating an order
of utility of the plurality of blocks of information sent through
said first sending means.
2. An apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising output
means for outputting data representing the number of utility of the
block of which utility order is designated on the utility order
designating data.
3. An apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the information
represents image information of an original document, and the image
information is sent for each page.
4. An apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said sending means
includes a reader for reading an original to produce an electric
signal.
5. An apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said second sending
means includes keys which can be used by an operator.
6. A sending apparatus comprising:
(a) first sending means for sending image information divided into
a plurality of blocks; and
(b) second sending means for sending designation data for
designating one of a plurality of image forming orders of the image
information of said plurality of blocks,
wherein said plurality of image forming orders to be designated
include a first image forming order in which the image information
of each of said plurality of blocks is sequentially formed once in
each sequence, and a second image forming order in which the image
information of each of said plurality of blocks is formed a
plurality of times in each sequence.
7. A sending apparatus according to claim 6, wherein the image
information represents image information of an original document
having at least one page, and the image information is sent for
each page.
8. An apparatus according to claim 6, wherein said first sending
means includes a reader for reading an original to produce an
electric signal.
9. An apparatus according to claim 6, further comprising supply
means adapted to display on a monitor the image information sent by
said first sending means.
10. An apparatus according to claim 6, wherein second sending means
sends the designation data through said first sending means.
11. An apparatus according to claim 6, wherein each of said
plurality of blocks has a capacity for storing one page of image
information of an original.
Description
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a communication terminal device
such as a facsimile machine.
2. Relates Background Art
A facsimile communication apparatus which has an image memory and
stores a plurality of pages of communication images received from a
sending station into the image memory and then records them on
record sheets, has been known. In such a device, when a plurality
of sets of the record sheets of the communication images are
required in a receiving station, an operation of "number of copies:
n" is carried out so that n record sheets are produced for each
page in the sequence transmitted by the transmitter.
This system is effective when the received communication images of
a plurality of pages are independent information from each other,
but if it is a series of continuous pages, the record sheets must
be rearranged after outputting.
A device which guides the record sheets to different trays by a
mechanical sorter to automatically rearrange the record sheets has
been known. In this device, as the number of trays increases, a
physically larger and larger device is required. Therefore, it is
difficult to rearrange a number of continuous pages of record
sheets in this device.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is an object of the present invention to provide a communication
terminal device which eliminates the above disadvantages.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a
communication terminal device which enables binding record sheets
without rearranging them.
It is still another object of the present invention to facilitate
handling of record sheets irrespective of the printing method.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide a
communication terminal device which allows setting the order of
recording of a plurality of pages of received information.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide a
facsimile machine having a memory which can store a plurality of
pages of received information.
The above and other objects of the present invention will be
apparent from the following description of the preferred
embodiments.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
FIG. 1 shows a perspective view of a communication terminal
device,
FIG. 2 shows a control block diagram, and
FIG. 3 to 6 show control process flow charts for reception and
recording.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
FIG. 1 shows a communication terminal device of the present
invention which can transmit and receive a facsimile image. Numeral
1 denotes a reader which reads a document and converts it to an
electrical signal, and numeral 2 denotes a laser beam printer which
prints one page of information received or read by the reader onto
a cut sheet fed from a sheet casette 7 in an electrophotographic
system by laser and ejects the sheet onto a tray 8 with the printed
side facing up. The electrophotographing process for printing is
not stopped until one page of print is completed.
Numeral 3 denotes a facsimile machine provided with a modem,
printer 2, a communication control unit CCU, a controller E (see
FIG. 2) and a memory C of FIG. 2. The facsimile machine transmits
the data read by the reader 1 through a line or prints the
information received from the line. The numeral 4 denotes a
keyboard for entering a dialing number of a destination station, a
transmit command, a print command, the number of print sheets, and
total number of pages of transmitted information. The keyboard 4
has character input means for composing a text and displaying it on
a CRT display 5. The composed text is transmitted as a code signal
through the line 4 one page at a time. The received text code
information is converted to bit information by the CRT 5 and is
printed by the printer 2. The image information read by the reader
1 (pixel bit information) and the composed text information
(character code information) may be combined in one page for
transmission or reception. A floppy disk 6 temporarily stores the
transmission reception information and stores a program for
composing text. It may be shared by the memory C shown in FIG.
2.
The facsimile machine has encoding and decoding means for
transmission and reception.
FIG. 2 shows a block diagram of a portion of the facsimile machine
which relates to reception and recording. A denotes an incoming
line from a network, B denotes a receiver (having a communication
control unit), C denotes an image memory, D denotes a printer for
printing a content of the image memory onto a record sheet, E
denotes a controller for controlling a flow of image information
and an address in the image memory and comprises CPU, (or a
microcomputer), ROM and RAM, and F denotes a console (keyboard 4 of
FIG. 1) for supplying user operational information to the
controller E. The ROM of the controller E contains programs for
print control shown in the flow charts of FIGS. 3 to 6.
When the receiver B receives a plurality of sheets of image
information from the line A through a signal line a, it informs it
to the controller E sheet by sheet through a signal line e. The
controller E counts the number of pages of the control information
and instructs through a signal line c which page of image
information is to be stored at which address of the image memory C.
The image memory C stores the image information in accordance with
the instruction from the signal line c. It is assumed that M pages
of image information have been stored in the image memory C, and a
user of the system operates the console F so that a "number of
copies: n" signal is sent to the controller E through a signal line
f.
The controller E accesses the page information firstly stored in
the image memory through the signal line c, and repeats it n times.
The image signal thus read is sent to the printer D through the
signal line d. On the other hand, the controller E issues a record
command to the printer D through the signal line g so that the
printer D outputs n record sheets on which first page of image
information is printed. Then, the controller reads the second page
and the printer outputs n record sheets. The above steps are
repeated until page M is reached. Thus, the printer D outputs n
sheets for each of M pages. This is inadvantageous when the
document comprises a series of pages. The operation flow of the
controller E for such operation is shown in FIG. 3. M represents
the total number of pages received by the controller, and m and N
are variables. Those are stored in the RAM.
When the number n of prints, a print start command and a mode 1
select command have all been received, the flow of FIG. 3 is
started. A parameter m is set to "1" to indicate that the page
information to be printed is page 1 (step 1). Then, a parameter N
is set to a desired number of prints n (step 2), a start address of
the page 1 (first page information received) in the memory is
specified (step 3). Memory is accessed at that address and the data
read from the memory is sent to the printer D by a known DMA
system. The printer is activated to start printing in accordance
with the read data (step 4). After one page of data has been read
(step 5), the parameter N is checked to determine whether it is 1
or not (step 6). If it is more than 1, N is decremented by one
(step 7). Then, the steps 3 et seq. are repeated until N reaches 1,
when whether all of the plurality of pages of information of the
memory have been printed or not is checked (step 8). If the
decision is NO, the parameter m is incremented by one (step 9) and
the steps 2 et seq are repeated to start the reading of page 2. In
this manner, n prints are made for each of the plurality of pages
of the memory.
The memory C may be a several-M-byte hard disk or semiconductor
memory fixedly installed in the facsimile machine.
A seocnd mode shown in FIG. 4 is now explained.
The controller E reads one page of image information first received
and stored, only once through the signal line c and activates the
printer D to output first page of record sheet. Then, second page
of image information is read and second page of record sheet is
outputted. The above steps are repeated until page M is reached,
when the controller E again reads page 1 and page 2 and outputs
them on the record sheets. In the second mode, this series of
operation is repeated n times. Thus, the output record sheets
comprise n sets of record sheets with the record sheets being
ordered from page 1 to page M in each set.
A desired number of prints n is set into the parameter N, the print
mode is selected and the print start command is entered from the
console F. The parameter m is set to indicate that the printing
starts from page 1 (step 11), a start address of the page 1 of the
memory is accessed, the page information is read, and the end of
reading of page 1 is monitored (steps 12-14). Upon the end of
printing of page 1, page 2 of the memory is read, etc., and the
procedure is repeated until page M is reached (steps 12-15). After
M pages have been printed, printing of the second set is started.
The steps 11 et seq. are repeated until n sets are printed. In this
manner, the print mode of the memory may be changed through the
console F as required.
In the step 5 of FIG. 3 and the step 14 of FIG. 4, the end of page
is determined on the basis of the EOP (end of page) signal sent as
the received signal and set in the memory manager of the controller
E. The mode 1 or 2 may be determined by the command signal from the
transmitting station.
If, but only if, continuous pages are sent from the transmitting
station, the mode 2 may be enabled upon the reception of a command
signal indicating continuous pages by the receiver so as to select
the mode 2.
Instead of recording in the order of reception, the memory may be
read in the reverse order to the order of reception in response to
a command from the transmitting station, and they may be
repetitively recorded. In the flow after the command is detected,
the start address for reading in FIG. 4 is set to the start address
of the last received page. Accordingly, when the record sheets are
ejected rear side up, the record sheets are arranged in page
sequence (mode 3). When a command from the transmitting station
instructs repetitive recording of only page m of the pages 1 to m
of the transmitted image (mode 4) or repetitive recording of other
than page m, only the page m is repetitively read after the pages 1
to m have been read for the former case, or pages 1 to m-1 are
repetitively read after the pages 1 to m have been read for the
latter case.
FIG. 5 shows a flow chart of the mode 3. A step 11' corresponds to
the step 11 of FIG. 4, a step 15' corresponds to the step 15 and a
step 16' corresponds to the step 16. In order to set the start
address for reading to the start address of the last received page,
the parameter m is set to M in the step 11', whether m is 1 or not
is examined in the step 15', and m is decremented in the step
16'.
FIG. 6 shows a flow chart of select print mode by a send command in
the receiving station. When a send request signal is sent from the
transmitting station, it is detected (step 21), and if the memory C
is empty and can receive data, an enable signal is sent to the
transmitting station (step 22). Then, the type of printer in the
receiving station is informed to the transmitting station. In the
present embodiment, the printer is a laser beam printer and the
print sheets are ejected with the printed plane facing up.
Accordingly, a type A is informed to the transmitting station. If
the sheets are ejected with the printed plane facing down, a type B
is informed (step 23). Then, the reception of the print mode
command signal from the transmitting station is monitored (step
24). When the command is received, the mode is determined from the
command data. If it is mode 3, the printing is done from the last
one of the received pages in the memory as shown in FIG. 5 (steps
25 and 26). If it is mode 2, the printing is done in the sequence
of received pages (steps 27 and 28). In this case, if the printer
is of the type A, it corresponds to a case where pages are
transmitted from the transmitting station starting from the last
page. In this case, the printing is done in page sequence and hence
the printed sheets need not be rearranged.
In the type B printing, the print sequence can be properly
determined by the command and the printed sheets need not be
rearranged.
In the mode 4, n in FIG. 4 is set to 1 so that all pages are
sequentially printed one by one (step 29). Then, m in FIG. 3 is set
to the last page M so that printing of page M is repeated n times
(step 30).
The present invention may be combined with a mechanical sorter. In
this case a tray may be replaced with another one after the tray
has received pages 1 to M. Accordingly, handling of the apparatus
according to the present invention can be facilitated.
In the present embodiment, the print mode is determined by the
receive command data. Alternatively, the receive command data and
the type of printer may be compared after the reception of the
command, and if they are equal, printing may be started
automatically in the receive mode or manually by the print command
in the receiving station, and if they are not equal, a warning is
displayed. In this manner, precision of mode selection is
enhanced.
When the mode is specified in the receiving station, the received
command and the type of printer may also be compared to enhance the
precision.
A mechanical sorter may be used in combination with such apparatus
as described above. Since the trays of the record sheets may be
changed after pages 1 to M have been outputted, the operation of
the machine may be simplified.
* * * * *